Faces of Long Island celebrates the uniqueness of everyday Long Islanders. In their own words, they tell us about their life experiences, challenges and triumphs. Newsday launched this social media journey into the human experience to shine a light on the diverse people of this wonderful place we call home.

‘To know he’s changing someone’s life like that has been truly rewarding and fulfilling on so many levels.’

Lake Ronkonkoma

“We rescued him six years ago. We named him Buddy after the movie ‘Elf,’ and then once he started playing piano, we added Mercury. He’s almost 7 years old. I think 7 might be his lucky age. He’s not a regular dog. He plays the piano and sings every day. I played piano when I was young and saw a piano at our neighbor’s curb. We got the piano into the house, and I never got back to it, but Buddy did. He rescued our piano in a way. It was covered in dust up until then.

“Buddy’s fame really took off a few years ago and has been really growing in recent years. There’s a video of him and our little one, Lil Sis, on our YouTube channel that has nearly 20 million views. I think our YouTube blew up because people wanted to see them play and grow up together. She’ll play piano or tambourines and use little guitars, and she loves to sing. They’re so cute together, but they are the typical brother-sister combination where sometimes, you do need to separate them, or they get on each other’s nerves.

“We’ve had people tell us, ‘My mom’s been in the nursing home for 10 years and I haven’t seen her smile until we showed her Buddy’s video.’ To know he’s changing someone’s life like that has been truly rewarding and fulfilling on so many levels. Until he doesn’t want to play, we’ll never stop posting these happy, little, fun videos. It’s all about spreading happiness, spreading joy, and making people smile. There’s such stress and chaos going on in the world.

“Ironically, when we saw him at the adoption event, what Glen loved about him was that he was so quiet. It was only a month or two after we rescued him that he started howling along to a fire siren. We had no idea beagles sing. Different news channels picked him up. Buddy was on ‘Good Morning America’ a few years ago and won Most Tail-ented Award. All this craziness started, and we said we have to do more. We’re going to start getting him out for more meet-and-greets. Maybe he’ll do a tour someday. Now with the weather getting warmer, we’re going to do a Long Island dog meetup. Next month, he’s going to be performing at a library. We’re going to get him back out there. We’re ready. He’s ready.”

He just wants to play the piano and he’s happy. His tail is always wagging.

“Buddy was a rescue. He was a stray in North Carolina when a rescue picked him up before coming to New York. Rescues are just so special. We want to keep sharing with the world to rescue and adopt. Buddy has an online store and we make a monthly donation with the percentage of the sales. We donate to animal shelters and rescues. We created a calendar where we ask our fans who would like to be in our calendar. We pick 12 animals to feature. Whichever rescue they were rescued from, in that month, we make a donation to that shelter or that rescue. Shelters are overrun with animals, so anything we can do to save another life is rewarding. It’s about community. We think he’s proud of his mission. Unfortunately, he’s going blind now. He was recently diagnosed with an eye disease called PRA. It kind of took us a while to talk about it without getting really upset. As humans, we rely so much on our vision, but dogs really don’t. For them, it’s all about the scents and the feel and the hearing. He’s doing really well with the transition. He’s almost completely blind now, but he has a little bit of vision. He probably can see shadows still out of his right eye, but the left eye progressed pretty rapidly. He does see an eye specialist, and so right now, that is a challenge for us just acclimating him to the transition, but he’s doing so well.

“He just wants to play the piano, and he’s happy. His tail is always wagging. We don’t know what this challenge may present with getting him out to performances, but so far, he’s doing so well, thankfully. The good news is he’s still going to live a long, happy, healthy life. I just love everything about this little guy. He’s so funny. He keeps us laughing. At the end of the day, he just wants to snuggle with me on the couch. He’s loving and he’s easygoing. If we could, if we had the room, we would adopt 100 more beagles. Animals ground you and bring happiness and joy. I grew up with dogs and at a young age, I was always exposed to dogs, but Buddy’s been our first dog together, as a family, and it’s just that much more special.”

He gave us a way to really help people, a bigger purpose.

“He’s just so loving. He has a heart of gold. He’s actually my first dog. I started training him. I got him to sit, roll over, give me the paw and beg. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if he could play the piano?’ I got him up there and hit some keys, and before I knew it, he started doing it on his own. This was in 2016. He would start choosing to do it himself, which is crazy. I was in the other room when he did it for the first time by himself. The first time I saw him playing, my jaw hit the floor. I couldn’t even believe it. I felt like I was dreaming. I think that’s a lot of people’s first reactions. I dove for my phone to catch it on video because I thought nobody would believe this. Some people online accuse him of being fake, of being CGI. I think of it as a compliment really.

“I’m a drummer. He sometimes sings when I’m playing because my drum set is downstairs, so he’ll sing along. In a recent video, I actually did play along with a piano player and Buddy, so it was all three of us playing together. The first time we heard him howling along to a fire siren, we were laughing. It was hysterical. Every day he does something different. He’s like a person, almost, that just can’t speak, but he does speak with the piano.

“I think he likes to create great music, but he also does get a tasty reward. Before the pandemic, I took him to training to be a therapy dog. Now, we’re focusing on his eye diagnosis and that transition. I just hope he leaves a legacy of happiness. I want people, if they’re feeling down, to always be able to go to his YouTube channel and he’ll brighten them up. He gave us a way to really help people, a bigger purpose.”

Interviewed by Melanie Gulbas

‘Growing up, I wanted to be a rock star. I realized I needed to do something in music, but it just took a long time to get there.’

Brian Orlando, Lake Ronkonkoma

“My uncle tells a story about me being 3 years old and not leaving until he put on The Beatles. If he skipped a song, I would know it. I remember sitting on the floor of my dad’s house reading liner note after liner note of album after album. That was before the internet. That’s how I developed music knowledge, reading the backs of those albums. Growing up, I wanted to be a rock star. I can’t sing; I can’t play a guitar. I realized I needed to do something in music, but it just took a long time to get there. Being in radio is my way of finding my own voice. I drove a truck for many years, delivering frozen food to school districts.

“The DJs on the radio were the ones that got me through. I always thought it was cool that no matter what time I got in the truck, I knew what voice I would hear and what comfort I would feel from that voice. That’s what made me think about getting into radio. One day, I ran into a longtime Philadelphia radio DJ at a diner down the block from my house after being fired from a restaurant job. Fate kind of took over that day and I was on the air on Saturday mornings. We might’ve broadcast out to 50 people tops if we were lucky, on a good day. It was the best feeling of my life knowing somebody was listening.

“Later on, I started working for a station in Westchester, commuting 1 hour and 15 minutes, one way, each day. I remember when 94.3 The Shark radio station first came on the air, I said, ‘Wow, this is my station.’ I applied a couple of times and did a lot of fill-in stuff. I would leave the Westchester station in the morning and fill in the afternoons for Rob Rush. In 2014, I got a phone call while I was at the mall with a friend of mine and the program director said, ‘could you come in?’ I said, ‘you know, I’m with a friend of mine right now, if you need me to fill in’ and he goes, ‘no.’ I said, ‘Well then can I see you on Monday?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t think you understand what I’m saying.’ I said, ‘I’ll see you in 20 minutes.’ I signed and on Sept. 22, 2014 was my first full-time morning show shift on The Shark. It was liberating because I knew that this was the type of radio I always wanted to do.

There are loopholes to every dream for the kid that wants to stand on stage with his favorite musicians. I’ve done it and I still can’t play. Don’t be afraid to stand out and stand up.

“My twenties into my early thirties were always a struggle to pay the bills. I borrowed plenty of times. I went without meals and never fit in. I had family members that might’ve been well-meaning who told me I had a better chance of being struck by lightning than I did getting a job in radio. While I was at my first full-time radio gig in Atlantic City, lightning struck the building and knocked me off the air. We were both right. Never let anyone tell you ‘no.’ I had a teacher tell me I wouldn’t amount to anything as I was writing lyrics to a song in 10th grade. The teacher ripped the page out of the notebook and said, ‘This is what you’re wasting time on? You’re never going to amount to anything like this.’ He was right. I should’ve been paying attention at school. But to have your dreams knocked down was hard. That lyric that I wrote was to a Candlebox song.

“Years later, the lead singer of Candlebox and I became great friends. Looking back, I’ve had all types of rejections, so have a thick skin because without it, you’re not going to survive in any business, let alone this one. No one’s going to notice you if you’re not there. There are very few jobs in this business. The best way to get noticed is to be there. If it’s answering the phones or running the board, to get a job in radio, you need to be near the station. You need to be available and not be afraid to handle any job you’re asked to do. When bands come in, I have an acoustic guitar that hangs in the studio and I hand it to them and say, ‘I’m just learning how to play guitar. Can you show me a song or two?’ I’ve jammed with Soul Asylum, Candlebox and Bush. I played guitar with the best musicians in the world, barely knowing how to form a chord.

“There are loopholes to every dream for the kid that wants to stand on stage with his favorite musicians. I’ve done it and I still can’t play. Don’t be afraid to stand out and stand up. This is rock music. We don’t fit in by default. I drive to work every day at 4 in the morning, so I can make a living. I’m still the Long Island commuter. It still feels like I’m talking to any one of my friends. That honestly feels great.”